


Born with Fire & Gold in Our Eyes

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 22:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: Misral doesn't know what's wrong in her village, but she has to keep Zizai safe.





	Born with Fire & Gold in Our Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsexualArchivist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsexualArchivist/gifts).

> OKAY SO HUFFLEPIRATE LITERALLY JUST POSTED THEIR VERSION OF THIS AND IT WAS ENTIRELY INSPIRED BY THEM PLEASE DONT THINK I COPIED IT DKJFHGSK I HAVEN'T READ IT YET but oh boy am i excited to ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE I LOVE YOU YOU'RE GREAT!!!!!!

It’s so faint he almost doesn’t hear it. Or, maybe it’s _because_ it’s so faint that he hears it — they’re all on high alert, and a false positive can happen a thousand times, but it only takes one false negative to get yourself killed. Hamid puts a hand on Azu’s hip. “Do you hear that?” he whispers, and she stops walking to listen.

“I do,” Zolf murmurs, and Cel nods in agreement. They creep slowly through the desecrated village, carefully avoiding skin-to-scale contact with the blue-veined corpses littering the ground. It’s another five minutes of walking before Hamid figures out what the noise is.

It’s crying.

He looks to the others, and by the way their faces have shifted, they’ve recognised it too. Hamid breaks into a sprint. “Hamid—” calls Cel, the loudest any of them have been since they found this place abandoned by sentient life, but Hamid doesn’t stop. There’s someone crying, and he needs to _help_ her.

The source of the crying is easy enough to find. It’s the loudest thing for miles. He readjusts his cuffs haphazardly and then sets to work moving the two bodies slumped haphazardly over one another, a knife slipping free from one of them as he scrabbles for the source of the noise. “Hamid,” pants Zolf, catching up with him and setting a heavy hand on his shoulder, “you can’t just—” Zolf must follow his wide-eyed gaze because— “oh, gods.”

There’s a squirming bundle that was shielded by the larger corpse, barely the size of Hamid’s forearm, and the hand on his shoulder is the only thing that stops him from picking her up right that second. “She must have been protecting her baby,” Hamid says, and he’s talking about the indigo-scaled kobold without any trace of the blue veins, but his eyes don’t leave the checkered blanket.

“It could have been exposed,” Zolf points out. The blanket wails. Hamid shows Zolf the gloves that cover any exposed skin, and then leans down to pick it up. “We don’t know if it’ll even live long enough to show signs of infection.” Hamid can see the sorrow in Zolf’s eyes, and he’s supposed to be a cleric of _hope._ He _has_ to understand why Hamid needs to help her.

“She definitely won’t if we leave her here to die,” he snaps, peeling back the blanket to expose a tiny, scaled face. The baby cries louder, and Hamid brings her to his chest, rocking her like his mother had taught him to do with the twins when they were small. “You’re alright,” he murmurs, “I’m going to take care of you, I promise.”

(He doesn’t let her touch his face.)

* * *

It’s a tense week.

The baby cries when anyone who isn’t Hamid holds her, and Hamid has to fend off the way she reaches up with chubby baby claws to grab his nose and ears. Cel makes some kind of horrid-smelling paste that she eats happily enough, and the occasional cricket makes her coo delightedly as she crunches it between tiny, sharp teeth. She fits in the palm of Azu’s gauntlet, not that she enjoys being there, squirming against the metal and chirping for Hamid in distress. Hamid sings her lullabies in Arabic that he only sort of remembers the tune to, calls her “darling” and “little treasure” and “habibi.” He knows he shouldn’t get attached, he _knows_ she might be a vessel for infection, but the baby stares at him with big blank eyes like he’s the centre of her universe, and Hamid’s always liked kids, honestly.

Zolf refuses to touch her.

Hamid understands, but it still makes things strained, makes them feel wrongfooted again. Like all the way back in Other London, arguing over sacrifices, except now it’s the end of the world and trust isn’t so much a marionette’s string to be pulled, but too many walls to break down, too many hoops to jump through. Hamid checks her over, promises there aren’t any blue veins, and Zolf just nods. “That was still a stupid decision,” he says, “but I’m glad it turned out alright. We can drop her off at the next village we find—”

“There isn’t another one of those for days,” Cel interrupts, “and there isn’t one that can realistically care for a baby lizard for even longer.” The baby in question makes a quiet raspberry noise, looking up at Hamid with her forked tongue still sticking out of her mouth. “But I’ve got enough food for her for about… six weeks? We should be fine.” Zolf looks at them for a long moment before sighing.

“Okay, that’s– not ideal. We’re going to have to find a way to give her to someone before we carry on with the mission, though, because we can’t take a fu– we can’t take a baby into situations that dangerous.” Hamid smiles gratefully at him, and Zolf nods in response.

The baby chirps, a little metallic noise from the back of her throat, reaching up for the gold cuff around Hamid’s ear. He catches her tiny hand in his, and her claws curl around his thumb like they were made to fit there.

* * *

It’s in the middle of Zolf’s watch when the baby starts crying. Hamid starts to sit up, but the familiar sound of quiet metallic creaking interrupts him as Zolf walks halfway across their campsite to pick her up. “Hey, kid. What’s wrong?” She doesn’t answer, obviously, just makes little babbling noises that sound like hissing and cricket songs and a high-pitched rumble of thunder. “I know,” Zolf says reasonably, as though she’s just explained all of her ills in perfect English, “but you can’t wake everyone up. It’s bedtime.” Zolf sits back down. The baby continues wailing. There’s the rustle of fabric, and then her crying is slightly hitched, like maybe Zolf is bouncing her gently. He mumbles, “You make a good point, but it’s still bedtime. C’mon. You’ll wake Hamid, and then he’ll be grumpy in the morning, and someone who isn’t him is going to have to carry you everywhere. I know you don’t like that.” Hamid can’t contain his tiny breath of laughter, and the baby makes a sniffly noise of confusion. “Hamid?” Zolf asks quietly. Hamid pushes himself up onto his elbow, looking over at the dim outline of Zolf with the baby on his knee, and Zolf sounds sheepish as he whispers, “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” The baby stretches her arms out to him, distraught chirping the loudest thing for miles, and Hamid smiles.

“I wasn’t asleep anyway. Bring her here?” Zolf hands her over, and she tucks her face into Hamid’s collarbone, scales rustling against the soft skin there. “Hello, little treasure,” Hamid murmurs, lying back down slowly, “it’s alright.” She makes a pleased hissing sound, and Hamid strokes a hand down her back, flattening the silver spikes down into a line. He looks over at Zolf and mouths, _“Thank you.”_ Zolf shrugs, but Hamid thinks he can see a faint smile.

* * *

They’re two weeks out from the village Cel thinks will take good care of the baby, and she’s started talking. Not in full sentences, but the chirrups are mixed in with babbling that reminds Hamid of halfling babies. “Bah,” she announces, tucked carefully into the sling Cel constructed so they could feed her without having to stop and sit down, “ah zih zai!”

Cel nods seriously. “Zih zai,” they repeat, and the baby gurgles happily. “Do you want some lunch?”

The baby grabs for the tablespoon that Cel’s been using to feed her for the past few weeks. She answers, “Zah buh bab.” Cel hums thoughtfully and then unscrews the small jar full of (worryingly) purple paste. The baby eats. Hamid tries to ignore the way his heart feels full.

* * *

The village can’t raise her. They can barely house the rest of them for so much as a night, so taking on a growing kobold is out of the question. “We’re almost there,” Zolf says, tapping at his bag with a thumb, “and we can’t take her with us.”

Azu frowns. She suggests, “We’ll do the job, and when we get back to Wilde, he’ll find someone.” Zolf readjusts the pack on his shoulder again. It’s a nervous tic that’s replaced the ring-twisting, and Hamid ignores the pang that he always gets when Zolf is so noticeably different from the man that Hamid remembers.

“Fine,” he says, “but someone’s going to have to babysit.”

* * *

It’s a long trek back, the food paste Cel’s made is blindingly yellow and smells even worse than before, and the baby (who, probably thanks to a quicker rate of maturity, has already started attempting to clamber over everything) has yet to stop crying. They’ve found an inn, and Hamid collapses face-first into the bed. He’ll shower in a bit; right now he just needs _rest._ Azu sets the still-crying kobold next to him as she sits down on her own bed, and then there are insistent hands tugging at the back of his shirt. “Mmngh,” Hamid grumbles unintelligibly, “in a minute, ‘Ziza.”

It’s fine for a moment.

But then, “Oh, are we naming her Ziza?” and Cel’s voice shatters the moment of exhaustion as Hamid realises what he’s said and goes taut like the string of a crossbow. “Uh. Hamid?”

Azu chimes in, “Ziza is a lovely name. It could be short for Aziza, if you liked?” She was there for the funeral, and the gentleness of her tone shows it, and it hasn’t been enough time since his sister’s passing to feel like an old scar, but this is. Nice, almost. It hurts the way nostalgia does, setting in and forcing his heart to expand too quickly with memories that he can’t return to. 

The baby keeps tugging at his shirt. Hamid manages, “Yes, I– I think I would like that,” into the pillow. He’s still tired, but all the selfish need to stay exactly where he is for all time leaves his bones, and he shifts slightly, just enough that he can make out Azu nodding in agreement.

She asks, “Does that sound good to you?” voice going rounder at the edges like it always does when she talks to the baby.

“Ah mah bah,” the baby agrees, continuing to try and drag Hamid from the pillows. Hamid relents, turning over and letting her sit on his stomach. She giggles, reaching forward to grab at his earrings and hair and nose. “Baba!” Ziza says, and Hamid laughs.

* * *

Wilde doesn’t find them anyone to take Ziza in. Not because he isn’t good at his job, not because he isn’t good at finding people, but because no one asks him to. Ziza is walking by the time they finally get back to base, and Wilde takes one look at her (gnawing on one of her silver claws and clinging to Hamid’s trouser leg) and asks, “Am I going to be babysitting?”

Azu and Hamid look a bit embarrassed. Zolf sighs. Cel shrugs and answers, “If you can get her away from Hamid long enough. Also, how’s the baby-proofing in this place?”

* * *

Ziza squints at Cel curiously. “Baba?”

“No, that’s Hamid.”

“Emmm mah,” Ziza babbles, sounding put out, and Cel raises an eyebrow at her. She puts her hands on either side of Cel’s face, newly-trimmed claws a striking contrast against their dark skin. “Mama?”

“Azu. Try again.”

“Maba!”

Cel hums thoughtfully before shaking their head, dislodging the hands. Ziza makes a chirp of distress, grabbing Cel’s face again. Hamid hides a laugh in his map. “Good! Close, but I don’t think so.”

“Bama,” Ziza says, and then Cel’s eyes light up.

“Ziza, can you say ‘bomb?’”

Hamid interjects, “Please don’t make her call you bomb.”

“Bombom!” Ziza proclaims at the top of her little lungs, letting go of Cel’s face so she can curl into their chest. “Baba, Mama, Bombom.” Cel makes a squeaky noise of adoration, reaching their spare hand up to scratch at the back of Ziza’s head. Ziza gives a little rumble of contentment, and Hamid realises that she’s never done that for anyone but him before.

He looks back at his map with a smile splitting his face. “I think she likes you,” he murmurs, and Cel laughs.

“I think I like her too. She’s a very good research assistant, did you know that?”

Hamid stills. “Cel.”

“Yeah?”

“What kind of alchemical research have you been doing with a _toddler?”_

* * *

Ziza is screaming. It’s so early that the sun hasn’t even come up yet, and Ziza is _screaming._

Hamid rushes down the stairs without bothering to put on clothes other than pyjamas, and he finds Azu kneeling beside a panicked Ziza. “It’s okay!” Azu promises gently, clearly trying not to laugh, “It’ll grow back!” Hamid rubs the sleep from his eyes and the blur that is his daughter stabilises. She’s holding a fang. Ziza stops screaming to inspect it, turning the sharp white (and yellow, at the root, the same colour as the scab she got from skinning her knees) tooth around in her hands, squinting at it. After a moment of this, she holds out the tooth a little more forcefully and makes a noise that’s more like a whiny imitation of a scream than anything else. Azu laughs in the pitying way Hamid’s only ever heard from adults who know their child isn’t actually hurt.

Ziza sits down with a bump. “Mama,” she whines from the floor, _“toof,_ mama!”

Azu scoops her up, and Ziza only barely fits in her palm, now. Kobolds grow fast. “You’ll get a new tooth, mjusi mdogo, don’t worry.” She turns around to see Hamid leaning in the door, and she gives him a smile. “Do you want to go back to bed with your baba?” Azu asks softly. Ziza nods with a little sniffle, holding out her arms to him, so Hamid steps forward and takes her; it feels like home when she buries her face in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” Hamid murmurs. Azu beams.

“Of course, Hamid.”

_“Sleeb,_ Baba,” Ziza whines, and Hamid rolls his eyes.

“Watch your tone,” he chastises warmly, and she nuzzles in further.

“Sleeb,” she says again, yawning against his skin, and Azu gives them both a soft smile that Hamid feels mimicked on his own face.

“Okay, habibi,” he mumbles into the top of her head, “get some rest.”

* * *

It was a mistake, leaving Ziza and Oscar alone together. Apparently, he’s taught her their names. “Zolf!” she announces, pointing at the dwarf in question. Zolf nods seriously, and Ziza giggles. “Zolf,” she says again, and then she toddles over to poke Azu in the knee and declare, “Zu!”

“Azu,” she corrects gently.

“Zuzu!” Ziza says instead, and Hamid can pinpoint the exact moment when the paladin’s heart melts. Ziza laughs again, and then she twirls around in a lopsided circle and sings, “Zolf an’ Zuzu an’ Ozzie an’ Ziza!” She sits down at Hamid’s feet, worn out from the spinning, and looks up at him with wide eyes. “An’ Z– zzzz. Zamid.” 

Oscar chokes on his wine. Azu _aww_s, both hands over her heart, and Hamid silently decides that as soon as she’s old enough to be embarrassed about this, he’s going to bring it up for the rest of their lives.

* * *

_“Hamid,”_ scolds Ziza, and her voice does this funny thing where it manages to be soft and condemning at once, and Hamid very much wishes Zolf hadn’t taught her that.

Cel grins at him like the bastard they are and croons, “Ooh, someone’s in trouble!”

Ziza continues to scowl at him until Zolf makes a shallow sound of amusement and says, “Don‘t speak to your father with that voice,” and Hamid snorts. It’s something that the four of them have picked up, referring to Hamid and Azu as Ziza’s mother and father, even though she’s being equally raised by all of them. It’s more joking than anything, but Ziza stops looking ready to lecture and instead cocks her head at Zolf, the black scales at her frills working with confusion.

She points a white-clawed finger at Hamid and corrects, “Baba.” Hamid makes a wounded noise, one hand going to his heart. Ziza pays no attention, pointing back to Zolf. “An’ _you’re_ Father.”

“Oh,” stammers Zolf. And then, “I– mean, if you’re gonna call me anything, don’t make it something so emotionally repressed.” Cel snorts, and Hamid glares at him. Zolf puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying! Everyone who calls their dad ‘father’ is either a murderer or desperate for approval. Or both.”

Azu says, “Hamid isn’t a murderer,” in a tone of voice that promises she’s leaving out the second half of her defence on purpose.

“And I’m not desperate for approval!” Hamid squawks, before furrowing his brows and asking, “Am I?” Zolf bites down hard on his lip, and Hamid realises what he’s just said just as Cel starts giggling. “Oh– wait, no I—” but it’s too late, and now all three of them are laughing, and Hamid can’t do anything but hide his head in his hands.

* * *

Ziza’s nearly doubled in size since they first found her, and she’s learned snippets of English and Arabic and Japanese that she mashes together into babbled explanations that only Cel really understands. Hamid is her favourite thing in the entire world, second only to his jewellery, which he thinks still counts as ‘him.’

The issue is, she’s also grown into something of a curious streak. “Where your scales?” Ziza asks, the frills at her neck puffing out. Hamid turns one of his hands into a claw before reaching down to try and catch her with it; she laughs and darts away, nearly tripping over the trousers he still needs to mend. She sits down on the floor, just out of his reach, and asks, “Where your horns?”

“I don’t have any,” Hamid says simply, going back to stirring the stew Zolf left him a very clear recipe for. It’s supposed to help with the common cold — Hamid rather hopes he makes it correctly, because Zolf is a bit grumpy when he’s sick.

Ziza frowns, reaching up and patting at the stubby silver nubs that should be growing in soon. “But…” she says, as if thinking something over with all of her might, “my horns?”

Hamid’s heart drops into his stomach. “Yes,” he hazards, “but I’m not– well, I suppose I am your father, but– you had a different family. Before Oscar and Bombom and Father and Mama. And they had horns just like yours.” Ziza brightens, forgetting all about the play-fighting and scampering right up onto Hamid’s shoulder.

“See them?”

“No, Ziza. You– you can’t see them.”

Ziza’s smile drops in half a second, the fickle sort of mood swing that only a small child can manage, and she wails, “But _Baba!_ Wanna see!”

Hamid scoops her off of his shoulder and into his arms, turning the stovetop down low and beginning the walk up to the inn’s rooms. “Why don’t you go cheer up your father, little treasure?” he suggests, hoping to prevent the tantrum he can feel brewing. Ziza squirms in his grip, protesting, and Hamid scolds, “Don’t get fussy—”

_“See them!”_ Ziza shouts through the beginnings of a hiccupy sob, wriggling so much he nearly drops her twice over, _“See home!”_

Hamid snaps, “Aziza Smith al-Tahan Sidebottom Wilde, _stop it.”_ Ziza doesn’t do any such thing, only crying louder, and Hamid gives up on soothing her. He opens the door to Cel’s room, and they don’t so much as blink before spinning in their chair and taking her from Hamid. “I’m so sorry; I was going to give her to Zolf, but he’s already dealing with being ill and—”

Cel shushes him and puts Ziza in an odd silver contraption, strapping her in with a bit of cloth, and then clicking something that makes it move back and forth in a rocking motion. “It’s alright. She can cry herself out in here and give the rest of you your peace and quiet.” They grin, and tap the massive scar where their ear used to be. “Not like the noise is going to bother me all that much! What set her off this time?”

Hamid takes a deep breath. “She, um– I told her she couldn’t see her birth family.” Cel’s eyebrows raise, and Hamid wrings his hands, stammering, “I’m not being needlessly cruel! She’s only a year old, that’s not the sort of thing you can explain to—” he flaps a hand at the still-crying kobold, and Cel lets out a long puff of breath that Hamid knows by now translates to _‘yeesh.’_ “I know,” he says miserably, “I know, but– dinner’s going to burn. I’m going to go and. Not. Burn it. Thank you, Cel,” and then he’s out the door again.

* * *

Cel and Hamid are dissecting some of the more complex blueprints on a spare countertop while Zolf cooks and occassionally chimes in. Azu was there, but Ziza needed to be carried off to bed early after the third tantrum this week.“She gets this from you,” Hamid grouses, and Zolf splutters defensively.

“We’re not even related!”

Hamid rolls his eyes, and Zolf flicks some sesame oil at him for the indignity. “How dare you say something like that about our daughter,” he sniffs dramatically, which makes Zolf snort and Cel beam at them both.

“You and Azu’s daughter,” Zolf mumbles, starting to plate the food.

Cel shrugs. “I mean, she’s my daughter too? I think? I sure take care of her enough.” They crack up and announce, “Under communion, we all share one baby!”

Zolf stifles laughter and asks, “Do you mean communism?”

“Eh,” Cel says with a shrug, “I just mean we’re a big happy family. Where none of us are the same race or have the same homeland. Hamid, do you need help off the counter for dinner?”

Hamid accepts the lift down, takes his plate from Zolf with a wide smile, and goes to sit down at the table.

With his family.

**Author's Note:**

> Working Title: _HEY SHOUT OUT TO HUFFLEPIRATE FOR BEING THE BEST AT IDEAS_


End file.
